Use a 2B pencil to shade the seemingly empty space in the center of the burger.

Shade from the top dark area down to the lighter areas below. Move your pencil freely around the bumpy texture of the burger’s surface. These marks should be darker than the base layer you are covering but lighter than the surrounding shadow areas.

We didn’t yet outline the lower edge of the burger that borders the lettuce here like we did on the other side. Let’s do that now.

As you shade over the light areas, you can leave “highlights” in some spots. These aren’t going to be very visible or true highlights by any stretch, and they may very well be shaded over.

At any rate, even though the beef has very dark tones compared to the rest of the drawing, there should still be some apparent transition from dark to light areas, no matter how subtle.

Place some dark shading on the burger directly next to the right edge of the cheese slice.

Then continue to shade the spaces beyond the right side of the cheese slice. Shade in and around all of the various bumps and dents in the beef.

Keep shading the beef patty until all of the area of base shading is covered with darker tones. You should still see your previously applied areas of dark shadows showing through this most recent layer.

Switch now to your 4B pencil.

Shade along the lower edge of the burger patty. Use this opportunity to define the sharp, clear border existing between the patty and the thin layer of lettuce directly under it.

By placing these dark, heavy tones next to the lettuce leaves, which will be much lighter in value, it will help the lettuce to stand out much more clearly in our drawing. It will help to “push” the leaves forward so they appear they are sticking out at us.

You can see a similar effect up here with the cheese. With the dark and light tones placed so closely together, it helps to add realism and a level of dimension to the objects.

Well, well, I’m using so much graphite here that even with this paper between my hand and the drawing surface, I’m still smudging my drawing paper a bit from what’s on the barrier paper. It pays to refold or replace the barrier paper periodically in cases such as this.

Just a few more spots here and there, and I think we can wrap up the shading of the hamburger patty!

Okay, let’s see if I can clean this paper up a little bit more before continuing. I’ll use my plastic eraser.

I’ll do a final erase around the drawing again at the very end, but I want to just get some of this smudging off of the surrounding areas now.

Okay, now I’ll just brush the residue away.

Then I’ll get a few more spots on the other side.

I’ll clean up the lower bun area too.